The following appeared as a memorandum from the Human Resources director at Dexter
Gorman Instruments, a company that manufactures saxophones.
“On this year’s survey about work habits, our employees tended to strongly agree with the
idea that if they took less time to complete their assigned work, the quality of their work
would suffer. However, we recently conducted an internal study that proves this idea
wrong. Managers across several divisions identified an overtime group: the employees
who worked an average of 48 or more hours per week over the past year instead of the
expected 40 hours per week. We then looked at the number of documented work errors
produced by all of our employees during the past year and found that the overtime group
was responsible for significantly more work errors overall than their fellow employees. On
the basis of these findings, our recommendation to the company president is to require
employees to complete their work during the regular 40-hour work week and allow
overtime only for urgent circumstances.”
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order
to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are
reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate
the recommendation.
The author recommends the employee should work for 40-hours a week allow overtime only for urgent circumstances. The author cites an internal study as an evidence to back up his recommendation. However, the results of the study are vague and therefore, the recommendation should not be accepted without thorough scrutiny.
First, an internal study cited by the author points out that the employee who worked for about 48 hours a week made significantly more errors in the work than those employees who work for 40-hours a week. But, the author fails to provide any concrete number for the number of errors made by the employee. Also, whether there was only one worker in the group who made mistakes when working for 48-hours a week is not known. In case, where only one worker makes more error than all other employees working for 48-hours a week then the recommendation of the author is destined to fail.
Second, it is unknown whether the employees working for 40-hours a week rectified their error after committing it? In case, they the employees working for 40-hours a week rectified their work, the internal study conducted by the author belies the true picture and therefore, the recommendation would prove to be counterproductive. Also it is unclear how much time each employee took to complete the task. It might be possible that those in the 40-hours a week group worked for longer time on certain days and did their work meticulously, as a result. Since it is unknown how much time each employee in both, 40-hours a week and 48-hours a week, took to complete the individual task. One of the possibility that employees working for 48-hours a week worked for significantly shorter time on each day through out the week. Consequently, made more errors than those employee who worked for longer hours but overall spent less time over the time period of a week.
Third, no information about the sample size of internal study is given. Thus, it is imperative to know the sample size of the study and whether the subjects were representative of the population or not. If the sample size was significantly large like there were 200 subjects then recommendation may prove valuable. Conversely, if the sample size was small , for instance, 10 people then study does not necessarily represent the population and the results ,in turn, would be apocryphal. Moreover, it is unclear whether the study was conducted by the disinterested member or those who conducted study had any ulterior motives? Only in the case, where study was conducted by the disinterested member and sample size was adequately large do the recommendation may hold true. But on the contrary, no such information has been provided and therefore, recommendation is unlikely to give the predicted result. It might be that those who conducted the study wanted to reduce the number of hours they spend at work and hence, rigged the result.
In conclusion, since there are many questions unanswered, the recommendati
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 498 350
No. of Characters: 2426 1500
No. of Different Words: 197 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.724 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.871 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.801 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 156 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 115 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.652 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.322 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.826 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.343 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.558 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.146 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 332, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...on would prove to be counterproductive. Also it is unclear how much time each employ...
^^^^
Line 5, column 800, Rule ID: THROUGH_OUT[1]
Message: Did you mean 'throughout'?
Suggestion: throughout
... significantly shorter time on each day through out the week. Consequently, made more error...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 858, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this employee' or 'those employees'?
Suggestion: this employee; those employees
...ek. Consequently, made more errors than those employee who worked for longer hours but overall...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 204, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...epresentative of the population or not. If the sample size was significantly large...
^^
Line 7, column 356, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...Conversely, if the sample size was small , for instance, 10 people then study does...
^^
Line 7, column 455, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...represent the population and the results ,in turn, would be apocryphal. Moreover, ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, conversely, first, hence, however, if, may, moreover, second, so, then, therefore, third, thus, for instance, in conclusion, as a result, on the contrary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2492.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 498.0 441.139720559 113% => OK
Chars per words: 5.00401606426 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72397222731 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87699623233 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 201.0 204.123752495 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.403614457831 0.468620217663 86% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 762.3 705.55239521 108% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 36.2102660145 57.8364921388 63% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.347826087 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.652173913 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.73913043478 5.70786347227 136% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0677047552388 0.218282227539 31% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0261551204824 0.0743258471296 35% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0273709614937 0.0701772020484 39% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0357680815116 0.128457276422 28% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0260879553487 0.0628817314937 41% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.72 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.12 8.32208582834 86% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 98.500998004 78% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.